The power of words has, for a long time, fascinated me. Every deed since the birth of history has been prefaced by words. God spoke and life came into existence. A persuasion ushered Man to his fall. Words have initiated and ended war. They have inspired and inverted nations. They stand alone as a dominant power in the universe. We writers are responsible for wielding this formidable ability and using it, for good or ill, to change the world. Through words alone we can divulge what rests inside mankind. A soft whisper in the ear of a sleeping giant can awaken him to uproot the weeds and reveal the beauty resting on the forest floor.
I first began writing to foster myself to greatness. I fantasized day and night of immortality. I would stand beaming in my dreams, to the left of me a rapturous C. S. Lewis and to my right an elated John Steinbeck. I would watch the world ahead of me and see the transformation I would bring. And best of all, I would be celebrated for it. The great Ian Scott Paterson. Standing now in reality, my pompousness sickens me.
As writers, we inevitably immerse ourselves in story. My favorites are dark epics with one concrete, perfect hero who realizes that in the end, he must sacrifice himself in humility to save those who could in no other way save themselves. Wading around in those stories, I felt great disdain for the Villain. He is the same as the Hero in every way; only his desire is to use his greatness to advocate his own power and left the less fortunate to die by their own, ignorant hands.
When I put myself into these stories, however, I find I’m not wearing Hero’s shoes. I’m atop a dark mountain, looking down at a world fighting in the chaos I created, laughing maniacally. I was the Villain. All irony intended, my soap box was desecrated by words in stories.
I realized, and am still realizing, the mindset of a hero. He does not care about greatness. He cares about the people his greatness can affect. The greatest thing words ever taught me was that you can’t care about becoming great. No one who was ever great for anything good did it for personal glory. True, lasting change happens not when someone wants to be remembered for changing something, but when they see the change that needs to happen and will stop at nothing until it’s done.
We writers are Atlas. The world is poised on our shoulders, spinning round and round. The slightest shrug can shake nations, we need only to look up and decide which way to lean.
